Crackling in right channel, what do I do? Help, please.

I ordered an Son of Ampzilla II from SST. It’s more than I wanted to spend but I can pick it up and move it around. It’s a 40lb brick and not a 75lb or 90lb brick. I’m looking forward to seeing how it does. I ran James Bongiorno’s 90lb Class A Sumo Gold for years. I know this is only A for the first ten watts, I believe, and AB for the rest but it is 220w into 8ohms and 350w into 4ohms.

Thanks for the suggestion of the spade to banana adaptors. That will help. And, yes, I will dislike anything that I buy, lol. I was trying to minimize the amount of dislike. I’m in the grieving stage. I’ll have to live with the replacement for months. 
 

Getting an amp I can lift is probably the most important requirement. 

@larrykell 

you are making this too hard. Almost any amp will do. You seem to be worried about the speaker cable lugs fitting and you can look for a LOOOOONG time before you THINK they might fit. In the meantime you could buy a reasonable amp, you could buy some spade to banana adapters (transparent among many make them) or better yet, buy some cheap cables or even marginal bare wire that will get you by. Once again, you are looking for something temporary and you will dislike to varying degrees virtually everything you might acquire.

No worries!

There must be an amp that would work for me.

Ah I see what you did apologies Larry and carry on and good luck getting your amp repaired!

I didn’t move the cable, I just swapped what channel on the amp was connected to which cable. Both speakers are still connected with the same cables.

Larry if the speaker cable on your left channel had a short and was creating noise and you then moved that cable to the right channel it would make noise there also right? When you swap cables like that you're not bypassing them you need to swap in another cable to rule them out.

I’ll have a month with a new amp and my existing speaker cables to see if the crackle comes back. I can’t take any more chances powering on the monster amp.

So, you don’t think it means anything when I switched the speaker cables and immediately moved the crackle from the right channel to the left channel? The left channel has never had a crackle until I swapped the speaker cables. It’s hard for me to believe that both speaker cables have somehow gone bad, and that one of them hid its fault. 

Yes, I will get the Gryphon repaired. It will take months, months waiting to drive it to the repair shop, months waiting for the repair to be done, and months to find the time to go back and get it. I have the airline shipping crate but it is expensive to ship the amp by truck and there is a risk that the amp gets damaged.  

Larry if you swapped speaker cables you in fact did not rule them out as they are downstream of the amp and thus could still be a source of noise. I'm sorry to belabor that point but how much easier would new speaker cables be vs an amp repair?

And I very much concur with @ghasley you really should get the Gryphon repaired if it's indeed the culprit.

It’s true. There is no worthy substitute in my price range. My requirements are, it needs to take my large spades, have XLR inputs, and I have to be able to lift it. 

@larrykell 

If you cant get a loaner amp, may I suggest it almost doesnt matter what you purchase for the short duration of getting your Gryphon serviced. Buy a decent preowned amp that has reasonable demand when it comes time to resell. There will be nothing you drop in to your system that will provide you with the amplification experience you are used to.

Gryphon Colosseum Binding Posts 

Gryphon speaker cable spades 

I need binding posts like this:

Gryphon speaker connections

or at least connectors that are open on all sides so my spades can fit. 

I swapped the speaker cables at the amp and the crackle moved. It’s a channel on the amp.

I was excited about the Benchmark until I realized that the speaker binding posts will only take small spades. My Gryphon speaker cables have huge spades. To make matters worse, the Benchmark puts the speakers posts above the XLR inputs, almost guaranteeing that they’ll block my input cables. Sigh.

The reviewer of the Benchmark in Stereophile mentioned that he was looking for lighter amps because he could no longer lift or move heavier amps. I’m in the same boat, at the moment. 

Who makes a good 150w into 8ohms Class AB amplifier for about $3k? I need to be able to lift the thing. It has to have balanced inputs.

Check out the Benchmark ABH2 power amplifier, 100w x2 @ 8Ω, 190w x2 @ 4Ω, should has enough power to drive your speakers and only weight 12.5lbs.

Yes seriously Larry make sure its not the speaker cable before you buy a new amp.

Who makes a good 150w into 8ohms Class AB amplifier for about $3k? I need to be able to lift the thing. It has to have balanced inputs. No tubes. 

""I swapped the speaker cables at the amplifier and the crackle moved to the other speaker.""

Run one single attached speaker cable then the other to determine if it is the cable? Maybe you did that as I did not read every post. 

Thanks everybody. I’ve seen enough to swap the amp to see what happens. I can’t take any more chances with the monster amplifier. The crackling appears to be happening more frequently now.

I’m not going down the tube road. You guys have convinced me to stay away. 😁

I know the people at Soundsmith will get it fixed. They’re wonderful. 

Good point, there @audphile1. And before applying any contact enhancer, might be worth checking that all connectors are firmly seated. 

Also, if you have a contact cleaner like DeOxit I would clean all connectors (xlr pins, RCAs, speaker terminals and binding posts).

Sometimes, troubleshooting is a pain. I had intermittent bursts of static in one channel. In the process of troubleshooting, I found one bad tube socket (replaced) and a bad XLR plug on an interconnect (got that re-terminated by manufacturer at no cost). I retubed everything -whole lotta tubes, almost none new stock. Still, despite this, and before sending equipment out for repair, I did a cross-channel exchange of the battery packs on my line stage- a fairly sophisticated device. In the process, I saw a bit of "fluff" on the metal contact plate. Dusted that and noise went away.

Moral: It could be something really stupid. I don’t know if there is a tech who could test some basic stuff at your home- like a house call. I almost resorted to that here in a town that’s thin on hi-fi (but lots of tube amp repair people in Austin for tube guitar/organ/other musical instrument amps).

I would also ask Grypon by phone (though you may have to set it up by email first) to tell you where they think the problem might lie if it is indeed the problem. Sometimes, those discussions give you leads to check something else.

Sympathize with you in suffering that "what’s the problem" phase until you suss it out. Some of the logic of troubleshooting is straightforward in terms of switching channels, trying to isolate to a particular component. It’s almost always got an answer, though. If that isn’t your thing maybe, depending on where you are located, somebody qualified could help do the troubleshooting. IT can be a PITA>

Good luck, you’ll find it and fix it.

Larry…before you conclude it’s the amp and to make sure you cover all bases, try a different pair of interconnects and speaker cables to eliminate a potentially faulty cable. 

I had a similar problem with a crown xls 1502 and 2502 a very close to the same noise it ended up being the amp had to be cleaned 

Another try at posting the manual:

Gryphon Colosseum Manual

The amplifier is Class A the whole way. There are some low, and medium bias modes of 30w Class A and 70w Class A but I never use them. 
 

The manual Is here: 

the front and rear edges of the amplifier are heat sinks and, yes, they get hot. The amplifier wastes a watt in heat for every watt it produces in sound but it is a sweet sound.  

The specs are here:

Gryphon Colosseum Specs

in the right column. The whole system is on a dedicated 20a line and the amplifier is plugged into a high current plug on an AudioQuest Niagara 5000.

@larrykell 

I didn't see those specs, but I will take your word for it. Are these all power rating Class A? I read the brochure and it only gave 160 W rating at 8 ohms.

I think my system sounds good and has life. Here is an iPhone video of one minute of Dame Janet Baker singing Where Corals Lies from Elgar’s Sea Pictures:

Elgar video

I hope this works. It’s hosted on Imgur. You may need to turn the sound on by hitting the speaker icon in the upper right. 

The Gryphon Colosseum can produce 1250w at 1ohm and 5400w at 1/2 an ohm. The capacitors are huge. The amp has plenty of power and can handle far larger speakers than the Cantatas.
 

See here: 

@larrykell

I am happy to hear you found the problem with amp. I had this happened twice with my Mark Levinson 23.5. First time, it was a capacitor gone bad. So I sent the unit to George Meyers AV and they completely replaced all electrolyte capacitors. Then earlier this year, my left channel became barely audible. I sent the unit back to George Meyers and they found the problem and fixed it at no cost to me except shipping & handling.

So I had to do this drill to isolate the problem. I have tubes upstream and some tubes can give similar problems you described. I always start from the speaker side and work up the chain to all the way to source. One time, I had a bad tube in my Audio Research PH5 phone and right channel began to fad in and out.

You have an excellent system. But have you noticed that impedance of your speaker drops to 3.5 Ohms and your amp is rated at 160 W Class A at 8 Ohms? Since it is an all Gryphon system, it may be working. However, I would recommend you find an amp also rated at 4 ohm and 2 ohm preferably power doubles as impedance is halved. Since you are now looking for an amp, this may be an opportunity to find out if you can breath new life to your speakers. For an example, ML 332 advertised below may be a worth a shot. This unit was recently serviced by George Meyers.

Before the preamp are my sources, and switching between them did not get rid of the crackle. Hopefully, I’ll have a new amp to try within the week to see what happens. I’m not going to be able to move the monster amp for probably a month or more. 

Actually it’s better to start switching the interconnect from the source and head down stream until it changes channels. Just because you switched at the pre amp doesn’t preclude the problem isn’t before it. I realize you found it's the amp but that’s what i had to do to isolate a problem in my pre amp 2 months ago.

I switched the speaker cables and the crackle went to the other speaker. 

I'd go for a Son of Ampzilla II for around $1500. I missed one on Reverb. 220 watts into 8 ohms, 350watts into 4 ohms. A 20lb transformer is a good start. James Bongiorno always tried to provide a lot of bang for the buck. 

I probably won't be happy with any Class D in my price range and might be somewhat happy with Class AB. For me, Class A is the destination. 

@larrykell 

1. Swap left and right speaker wires at the output of the amplifier. Please switch off the power amp when you do this otherwise you may damage your speaker. If the problem also moves from right to left speaker, then  you can rule out the speaker. Otherwise, problem is the right speaker probably a bad driver.

2. Now swap left and right connectors at the input side of the amp. If the problem also moves from left to right, then you can rule out the amp. Otherwise, it is the amp.

3. You can repeat this to the preamp as well.

Hope this helps

It could be a driver undue and switch speaker cables.

Ok, well, I’ll buy a replacement amplifier, swap it in, and see if the crackle comes back. I don’t want to take any more chances with the monster amp. 

Just to throw this out there Larry it could also be a short in your speaker cables maybe check that before hauling the monster amp someplace. I had a short in an interconnect cable that made the same type of noise.

Yes, first I switched the speaker cables and the crackle switched channels. Switching the inputs from the preamp did not move the crackle. 

swap the interconnects between the preamp and amp and see if it moves. That will tell you amp vs preamp.

That AGD Tempo di Gan does sound interesting but I'm not so sure I can find one for sale. Let me know if you see one. 

I don't know if I'll ever swap out the Colosseum to listen to something else, to be honest. With that said, it would be nice to have something that I enjoy listening to. I'm thinking that I might go to $3k. I'm sorry that that is so cheap.

I don't upgrade very often and so I am wondering what would move the needle the most in terms of sound quality. I was thinking that breaking the bank on the Gryphon Pandora preamp would make a noticeable difference but now I have to pay for an amplifier repair. 

So it goes. 

Is the amp you purchase to tide you over going to get sold when your Gryphon returns or will you keep it for the occasional "something different" mood that plagues so many of us? What is your budget for your given scenario?

Or the Voyger from Wally at Underwood and it is real inexpensive. 

If 100W is enough, a really compact and good class D is the AGD Tempo di Gan.  It may have more immediate availability than the Atmasphere monoblocks.

Thanks for the help. Yes, I'll have to find some kind of amplifier to stand in while I wait to get the Gryphon repaired. I did this years ago when something else went wrong and the Class D amplifier I bought did not defeat the Colosseum. I guess there is no surprise there. 

The only reason I have the Colosseum is that it has a vertical footprint that fits into a rather cramped space. Now, Gryphon has gone away from vertical designs, so, I don't see any replacement in their current amp lineup. 

Speaking of tube amplifiers, I thought about trying the Cary CAD-120-S Mk II with its XLR inputs but I have no place to put it and I just know my wife will kick a tube if it is left on the floor, so, I'd better stick to solid state designs, lol. 

My friends at Soundsmith got back to me and said they're working through a backlog of repairs. I'll have to figure out when I can strap the Gryphon in the backseat of my car and make the long journey out there. 

 

Yes...sounds like the right channel to your amp. Im a tube guy myself but you will be very surprised with some of the better engineered class d amplification. Atmasphere has come out with a new pair of small monoblocks but maybe your dealer has a loaner?

Does everybody agree with my conclusion?